He has advised utilizing the USA army towards an “enemy from inside”.
He has threatened to prosecute attorneys, Democrats and others whom he falsely accuses of committing electoral fraud, and pledged to carry out the “largest deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants in US historical past.
And as soon as he’s again within the White Home, he has mentioned he will likely be a dictator throughout his first day.
Now, as Donald Trump seems to be on the cusp of securing the 270 Electoral Faculty votes that will win him the presidency, it stays to be seen whether or not the Republican will observe via with these incendiary marketing campaign guarantees.
However consultants have warned that Trump, if taken at his phrase, is gearing as much as lead a loyalist-filled, authoritarian administration intent on “revenge” – and the programme he has in thoughts can have dire penalties for the nation.
“What we get if you stack an administration with loyalists is you get the need of the minority mirrored. There will likely be no coalition authorities,” mentioned Rina Shah, a political strategist and former senior aide to Republican legislators.
“It’ll be about revenge towards the Democrats,” she added. “Will probably be a scary iteration of the manager department, scarier than we noticed it.
“He desires to rewrite the principles. He’s advised us as a lot.”
Marketing campaign guarantees
Trump got here to energy in 2016 on a wave of public resentment. His pledge to “drain the swamp” of profession politicians and different “elites” in Washington, DC, discovered favour amongst a good portion of the inhabitants, disillusioned with authorities paperwork.
His fiery speeches and assaults on perceived rivals – each inside and out of doors of his personal social gathering – continued all through his time period in workplace, which noticed him push via a spread of contentious insurance policies.
From 2017 to 2021, Trump’s administration was marked by a collection of hardline measures – notably on immigration and international coverage – that usually waded into murky authorized territory or had been struck down by the courts.
He adopted via on some campaign promises, together with withdrawing from the Paris Local weather Accord, imposing a so-called “Muslim ban” and elevating import tariffs.
Nonetheless, he didn’t ship on different pledges. For instance, he by no means succeeded in finishing a southern border wall and getting Mexico to pay for it.
A tally of Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign guarantees by PolitiFact, a fact-checking organisation run by the Poynter Institute, exhibits that, of 100 guarantees made, the ex-president broke greater than half of them.
Nonetheless, Trump’s rhetoric continued after 2020, when he didn’t win re-election, and it reached new heights throughout his 2024 marketing campaign to get again into the White Home. He took purpose at migrants, Democrats, reporters, prosecutors, judges and anybody else who disagreed with him.
Geoffrey Kabaservice, vp of political affairs on the Niskanen Middle, a centre-right assume tank in Washington, DC, mentioned Trump’s supporters are hoping he’ll use his second time period to transcend what he did the primary time round.
That might imply finishing up his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the nation, to weaponise the Division of Justice, or to fireside tens of 1000’s of civil servants, Kabaservice mentioned.
It might additionally contain enacting measures included in Undertaking 2025, a right-wing policy blueprint that Trump has tried to distance himself from however was written by conservatives with ties to the previous president.
“Whether or not that’s the query of abolishing departments within the federal authorities, or whether or not that’s a matter of limiting voting rights, you possibly can go down the checklist,” Kabaservice advised Al Jazeera.
‘True believers’
There’s a chance, nonetheless, that Trump could not attempt to perform a few of his controversial targets, Kabaservice mentioned. They may be thwarted by “the courts, by the deep state, by the general public response, or perhaps, merely, simply the incompetence of the administration”.
Kabaservice advised Al Jazeera that Trump seems poised to herald “true believers” fairly than the “so-called adults within the room” – the politicians, bureaucrats and different skilled Republicans who tried to average his impulses throughout his first time period.
He famous that some critics worry that “if Trump brings in his true believers, then they are going to be radicals, and he will likely be unfettered by the form of restraints that operated on him in his first time period”.
However he mentioned there’s a second situation that would play out as a substitute.
“It’s additionally equally doable to take a look at it [and say], Trump already went via nearly all the Republicans who had severe expertise with governing, with making the paperwork work, with getting outcomes,” he mentioned.
“And now he’s going to be with a bunch of amateurs who gained’t know what they’re doing – they usually gained’t get something carried out.”
Shah additionally famous that many Republicans who may need in any other case agreed to serve in a second Trump time period could refuse to take action in response to his actions on January 6, 2021.
That day marked a “turning level” for a lot of Republicans, she mentioned, as a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to forestall the certification of the 2020 election outcomes, which confirmed his loss on the poll field.
Trump was impeached within the Home of Representatives for “incitement of revolt”, and his efforts to overturn the outcomes are the topic of a unbroken federal legal case, in addition to a state-level case in Georgia.
Throughout these proceedings, US lawmakers and prosecutors have documented his refusal to cease the January 6 riot because it was unfolding. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
But the revolt “is the rationale you can’t be your regular, common, card-carrying Republican in a second Trump administration”, Shah advised Al Jazeera.
If January 6 had not occurred, Shah mentioned she thinks conventional Republicans would have served in a second Trump administration, even when they disagreed with him.
“I heard that the primary time round, as effectively. Individuals saying, ‘We could not like Trump, however we’re Republicans. Due to this fact, we’d wish to serve.’ I think there will likely be masses much less of that this time due to January 6, 2021.”
Function of Congress
There may be one other key issue that may decide what Trump is ready to accomplish as president: the make-up of the US Congress.
Erica Frantz, an affiliate professor in political science at Michigan State College who research authoritarianism, defined that legislatures sometimes can act as a bulwark towards strongman leaders.
She pointed to the case of Argentina, the place far-right President Javier Milei’s makes an attempt to maneuver ahead with controversial insurance policies have largely been rebuffed as a result of he doesn’t have legislative assist.
But when Republicans get management of each the US Home of Representatives and the US Senate with Trump within the White Home, the previous president will be capable to “get away with any insurance policies that he chooses”.
“The door would principally be extensive open for a slide to authoritarianism. I don’t say that frivolously,” Frantz advised Al Jazeera.
Republicans reclaimed management of the US Senate on Tuesday however management of the Home of Representatives was not instantly clear.
Frantz mentioned an “authoritarian energy seize” sometimes includes a number of components, comparable to purges of non-loyalists from a state’s bureaucratic system, interference with the courts and restrictions on the media’s means to report.
“After which in the end – and that is already beginning to achieve some steam – we’d see meddling with electoral integrity,” defined Frantz. These efforts might embody disenfranchising voters and politicising how elections are run.
The Republican Get together’s transformation into what Frantz described as a “personalist” social gathering – centred round a person – additionally implies that Trump is not going to face any pushback from his personal social gathering.
The Republican caucus has grown to be “very a lot synonymous with Trump”, she mentioned, noting that one-time critics of the previous president have both been purged from the social gathering ranks or fallen in line behind him.
“There’s a lot that will get set in movement if you see leaders come to energy backed by these types of weak and shallow events which can be actually centred on the person fairly than coverage,” Frantz mentioned.
“When you have got that state of affairs, it actually makes it simpler for these leaders to get away with energy grabs.”
